Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Right-Wing Conservative Training Camps

There are more right-wing conservative think tanks than you can shake a million dollar check at, and yesterday's Times had a piece on one of them, a political bootcamp/youth revival meeting where right wing values are nurtured among malleable youth. Here is a clip:

Dormitory banter cheered on Ann Coulter, the best-selling provocateur. Arguing for private property, Mr. Devine, the lecturer, noted “there are bums all over here” downtown, and “they sit on public property, not private property.” He lamented the prosecution of Kenneth Lay, the late Enron executive convicted of fraud, by asking, “Do you think it’s possible for a rich person to get justice in the U.S. today?”

One highlight was a trip to Rancho del Cielo — “the Western White House” — which the Reagans sold to the foundation in 1998 for $4.5 million. It consists of a surprisingly modest stucco home, set on 680 acres of horse trails and mountain brush.

Lecturing from a tent beside the home, Mr. Devine, who was the head of government personnel in the Reagan administration, seemed moved as he remembered his old boss. He reminded the students that the president “gained strength from Russell Kirk and Friedrich Hayek” and urged them “to be as good and decent and helpful as Ronald Reagan.”

That reminded Ms. Pajak of another line from Kirk, his call for “more elevation of spirit.” Without that, she said, reading from her well-thumbed book, “order, freedom, and justice fall into ruin.”